Recent years have seen increasing maintenance of gardens and various other types of landscapes by means of mechanized garden maintenance equipment. Such devices include power mowers, extra-wide mowers, tractor operated leaf baggers, electric hedge clippers, chain saws, powered post hole diggers, shredders, chippers, and electric bulb hole diggers.
Among the first tasks which became mechanized was the removal of unwanted material from the landscape. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 622,487 of Jones (1899) is directed to a sweeping device including four blowers and a rotary brush. Generally, this sort of device and others like it used blowers to create an air flow for the entrainment and collection of debris.
While Jonses' device is meant primarily for sweeping dirt and smaller debris from streets, the leaf collecting analog of the same is illustrated, for example, by U.S. Pat. No. 2,505,576 of Reitan (1950). Reitan's device is a power rake with a cylindrical configuration and is used to scrape leaves from the ground and toss them into a collection zarf. However, this power rake fails to use blowers to create a current of air which re-enforces the action of the rotary brush by running air in the same direction as the movement of the brush elements.
Nevertheless, other debris collection system of more recent vintage use blowing air to great advantage. These include ordinary backpack mounted leaf blowers and roller mounted leafblowers such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,932,137 of Jinkerson.
However, even though these devices have seen very widespread use, they are almost completely ineffective after leaves have been rained on and matted down. Under such conditions a simple blower either of the backpack or wheel mounted variety will not suffice to blow leaves to a desired place for collection.
Under such circumstances, it then becomes necessary to use a mechanical device to collect the leaves, resulting in resort to the conventional hand-held leaf rake of the type typically having a fan-shaped configuration. As an alternative, the rake may be used only to separate the compacted leaves from each other thus putting them into a volume which incorporates large air spaces. After being broken up in this manner, the leaves will become relatively easily moved by the action of a blower. Such a technique applies equally well to both blowers of the backpack and wheel mounted variety.
However, such an approach largely negates the advantages of automated air blowing.